Igor Orlov: The Pavlovskoye project on Novaya Zemlya will begin in 2019

The development of the silver-containing Pavlovskoye lead-zinc deposit on Novaya Zemlya will begin in 2019, Arkhangelsk Region Governor Igor Orlov said in an interview with the TASS news agency.

"Regarding the Pavlovskoye deposit, the investor, ARMZ Uranium Holding (JSC Atomredmetzoloto), has presented a production and marketing model for this project. We maintain active dialogue with the holding. By the way, ARMZ representatives will attend the [The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue] forum. We hope to be able to implement our plans to start developing the deposit in 2019," Orlov said.

The project will help increase the region's budget revenue.

"We expect all projects to pay taxes to the budget, as diamond production projects do. Cooperation between the authorities and investors under these projects has proved to be very effective. This involves new jobs, social projects and tax payments to the regional budget," the governor said.

Orlov told TASS that the development of the Pavlovskoye deposit would bring up to 1 billion rubles of annual revenue to the budget.

The Pavlovskoye deposit's reserves have been assessed at 2 million metric tons of zinc, 465,000 metric tons of lead and 670 metric tons of silver, and its aggregate prospective resources stand at some 19 million tons. The project is being implemented by Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ), the mining arm of the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation.

According to TASS, the license to develop the Pavlovskoye deposit has been issued to the First Ore Mining Company of the ARMZ Uranium Holding. The project's design stage is to be completed in 2018. The construction of a mining and processing plant (GOK) will begin in 2020.